From Ashes to Sunlight
by Exia
Summary: Jack is cold-hearted and cruel. She has seen the worst the galaxy has to offer. But even she can change.
1. Journal Entry 1

A/N: So. Apparently Tumblr has taken over my life. Even as I work on S-Day, I've made a _second_ Tumblr account so that I can RP as Jack. *shrugs* What can I say? I'm a sucker for her angsty self.

ooOO00OOoo

Journal Entry 1

God, what the hell am I thinking? I'm keeping a god-damned journal. _Not_ a diary, that would be fucking embarrassing.

"Just record events." Doc said. "It'll be for posterity."

Shit.

All right. Fine. For 'posterity'. But if I have to clean my language up for the little snots in the classroom, I'm sure as hell _not_ going to do that here. So, you. Whoever you are. If you're reading this and you can't stomach a little 'coarse language' you better get the fuck out right now. Cuz reading this will open your damn mind to a whole new _world_ of 'bad language' that you've never heard before.

I'm so not doing this right now.


	2. Journal Entry 2

Journal Entry 2

These kids.

These fucking kids.

They don't know a damned thing. So wide-eyed and innocent. What the hell am I supposed to do with them? They look at me and my tattoos, they see the anger buried only shallowly beneath my skin…and they are terrified. At least I don't have to worry about them acting out in class, but _Fuck! _

I've never wanted to _not_ scare someone before. And now I've got a class of ten that I would give anything not to frighten.

I'm supposed to come up with some sort of teaching manual. With lessons, and tests and shit. I'm guessing that I shouldn't use my lessons as a template.

What the fuck was I thinking, taking this job? Shepard would laugh the tattoos right off my ass…


	3. Journal Entry 3

Journal Entry 3

Shepard is still in jail.

Three months ago she destroyed the relay over Arothot to keep the Reapers from invaiding, killed a bunch of batarians to do it. Knowing her, she's sitting in her little jail cell being all weepy about their deaths. Who gives a fuck? She knew the stakes going into it, and she still went alone. Fucking stupid if you ask me. And how the hell do we know _she_ isn't indoctrinated now? Supposedly that computer on Ilos could tell, but damned if the rest of us know. And she spent two whole days unconscious around that 'Object Rho'.

Damn but I hope I'm being paranoid. And fuck if the galaxy isn't going to be destroyed anyway, because no one will listen to a damn thing she - or any of us - have to say.

The fuck am I doing here anyway? Holding the hands of these little shits while the Reapers are slow-burning their way through our galaxy right now…

I need a damn drink.


	4. Overindulgence I

Overindulgence Part I

Waking up was like coming back to life. Every muscle in her body hurt, the inside of her mouth felt like she'd been munching on cardboard, and there was this mysterious florescent green goo all over her left arm and leg that she couldn't explain. "What the fuck?" Jack cringed and promptly shut her mouth. Even her voice was grating, as if she'd spend the whole of last night in the middle of a mosh pit.

Taking stock of her surroundings, she realized that she was on a park bench, with her legs thrown over the back and her head dangling down where peoples feet usually went. Her right arm was flung over her head, and brushed up against something soft and furry. Turning her head to look at it didn't get her anywhere. Apparently whatever it was had made a home directly under her head, and she just couldn't see it. Grumbling and groaning, Jack managed to turn herself around on the bench long enough to see what it was. A puppy. When it realized she was awake, it stumbled to its feet and scrambled away a little bit, fear evident in its tiny gaze.

Ignoring it for the moment, Jack looked around some more, trying to figure out what happened.

There was a tinge of eezo to the air that usually followed her using large amounts of her biotics, and the earth around her was slightly scuffed in a giant ring around them. On the other side of the ring, sticks and stones lay scattered haphazardly, as if someone had been throwing them at her barrier and they'd simply tumbled to the ground.

Jack looked back down at the dog that, while it was evidently frightened of her, hadn't yet moved off. "Did I just save you from being bullied?" she asked the tiny thing. "That doesn't sound like me."

Dismissing the event from her mind, Jack stumbled to her feet and moved off, keenly aware of the tiny yelp and then the scrabble of paws that had accompanied her movements. It followed her back to the base, diving into bushes or behind poles when she would turn to look at it. _Too scared to stay, too scared to go,_ Jack thought with something dangerously close to sympathy.

She entered the school with no problem, but the guard tried to stop the puppy from following her inside, pulling out his shockstick and attempting to hit the dog with it. Without thought, she rounded on him, lifted him up with her biotics, and slammed him up against the wall. Oh-so-gently, she relieved him of the shockstick, and prodded him in the ribs with it, getting unholy amounts of glee from his strangled sounds of pain as he flopped helplessly against the wall like a fish on a hook. "How's it feel to be poked and prodded when _you_ can't do a damn thing about it, hmm?" she snarled at the man. "Don't fucking touch him."

A slight touch at her ankle, and Jack looked down to see the dog crouching behind her, his eyes wide and soulful as he looked up a her. "Fuck." Jack dropped the man unceremoniously, causing the dog to yelp and scrabble backwards once more. She stalked towards her rooms, the dog following faithfully the entire time.


	5. Journal Entry 4

Journal Entry 4

Got fucked up last night. Don't even remember what happened. Woke up on a bench in the park not far from the school with my legs over the back and a fucking _puppy_ at my side. The fuck happened? Been a long time since I blacked out like this.

Damn thing followed me home. Even came into my apartment with me. Bet it's just _infested_ with fleas. If there are fleas on this god-forsaken dump.

Don't know what the hell I'm going to do with it. Apparently I saved it from being bullied…?

What the _blue fucking hell_ did I take last night?


	6. Overindulgence II

Overindulgence Part II

Jack closed her Journal and looked at the dog, watched it as it tentatively explored its new surroundings. "What are you, anyway?" She took a picture of it with her omni-tool and did an extranet search. "Great Dane? Fuck those things are huge." She eyed it again. "You can't be a purebreed, but you look damn close to it. Must have run away." Jack thought of all the 'missing' posters she'd seen around the various settlements she'd lived at in the past, then promptly dismissed the notion.

She got up and took a hot shower, cleaning off the last remains of the green goo that hadn't flaked off on her journey back and stepped out to find the dog whining and scratching at the door to get in. "Needy little fuck, aren't you?" She let it in as she dried off and got dressed, dropping her towel on the floor in an untidy heap.

She went into the kitchen and got herself a glass of water, expecting to hear the scrape of tiny claws on the tile. When she didn't hear it, she turned around and reluctantly backtracked into her room where she saw the towel wiggling frantically back and forth. It yelped and barked, a sharp playful sound that put a unfamiliar smile at the corner of Jack's lips. The thing bounced around for a little while, the towel hopping up and down with the dog's movements. Eventually, it tumbled free of its enclosure and ran up to her, limbs flying every which way as its tongue lolled out the side of its mouth. Jack broke out into laughter and shook her head. "Some dog you are, defeated by a towel."

She returned to the kitchen, followed this time by the scrabbling paws, and she filled a bowl with water, setting it on the ground for the puppy. It attacked the bowl like its life depended on it, splashing water everywhere in its exuberance. While it drank, Jack looked in her sadly-empty cooler. "You eat eggs?" she asked the dog. "S'all I got."

Pulling out the carton - the base had a local farmer that produced fresh eggs, a luxury on an otherwise backwards planet - Jack fried up half a dozen hens eggs, putting four on a plate for herself, and reserving the last two for the puppy.

Placing the two on the floor for the dog, Jack ate hers standing up in the kitchen, as she always did. Together, woman and dog broke their fasts.


	7. Coffee

A/N: I put up a post saying that a word was put up in my ask box - any word - then I would tell a fact regarding my character that was associated with the word. Obviously, I don't know how to follow my own rules, because I wrote drabbles instead. *shrugs* The more for you!

Major-kirrahe said: Coffee

ooOO00OOoo

Most humanoids had no problem with the smell of coffee. Most _humans_ liked it. Not Jack. She couldn't stand the stuff. All she could think, every time she smelled it, was: _kill._

For the first twelve years of her life, the smoky, slightly bitter scent hadn't meant _wake up_, it had meant _pain._

All of the scientists who had experimented on her, all of the soldiers who had held her down, all of the plastic-faced fucks who had _done things_ to her…all of them had smelled strongly of coffee.

So now, every morning on the Normandy, she woke choking back a scream, her heart hammering in her ears. Not there, not there, she would chant to herself, trying to keep the nauseating fear at bay.

Eventually, she hurled herself up the stairs and into the elevator, snarling Ken and Gabby out so she could have it to herself. Stepping onto the crew deck and pretending that the smell of coffee didn't make her want to kill everyone in sight was teeth-grindingly difficult.

"Good Morning, Jack. Want some coffee?" Gardner called helpfully.

"Go fuck yourself with a razor blade dipped in acid, Gardner. Don't fucking talk to me." Jack grabbed an apple and stalked back towards the elevator.

Gardner shrugged to the rest of the crew. "Guess she's not a morning person."


	8. Snow

A/N: Same as before.

Cloakandshoot said: Snow

ooOO00OOoo

Shock. Wet. _Cold._

She'd run from the merc group, fleeing to an abandoned mining complex on a level I cold hazard world. No one would follow her to this world. She'd be safe from them here.

But she hadn't been prepared for the snow. White, and densely packed, it had come down in sheets, stinging her exposed skin and making her teeth rattle in her head. She knew that snow was just frozen water, but that didn't prepare her for the shock of it to her system. She was barely fourteen, and had only been on her own for a year and a half.

She'd experienced much since then, but cold? No. Never cold. It shook her bones, made her skin tighten all over her body, and seemed to freeze her very nervous system.

As she huddled in the corner of a cave, staring out at the opening, Jack swore to herself that if she got out of this place alive, she would NEVER go somewhere cold again.


End file.
